Last weekend was our first Collegiate Conference race of the 2016-17 season! We were lucky enough to host it in our own, recently cleaned, backyard pool (Tempe Town Lake). Over the past two years our team here at ASU has really grown. I think we had 25+ athletes racing, and we easily outnumbered every other collegiate team there!
After a rough night of sleep, (for some reason my upstairs neighbor thinks 3 am is a great time to walk around and slam doors) I made sure to drink some coffee. We rolled down to the Lake and got situated. We made sure to take tons of pictures, and our Coach Danny was on his mountain bike getting ready to give encouragement out on the course.
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| When bae asks how much coffee you've had this morning |
I saw a few familiar faces and bikes in transition that I would need to look out for. The first was Paul Stevenson’s, who is an ASU alumni and one of the most solid cyclists in triathlon. Another other was Pedro Gomes, who is a local pro. He had a tough race in Santa Cruz the previous weekend where he flatted on a tubular and had to get a wheel change, losing significant time, so I knew he’d be gunning for us. A third player was going to be Josh Fowler from U of A. Last year at Havasu he ran me down even though I had a three minute lead coming off the bike on him. The dude is an absolute animal on the run. Some other people I was looking out for were Collin Reisenauer and Conrad Sanders, both TriCats that I know have been working hard all summer.
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| Conrad photobombing |
Swim:
I lined up on the far right side, opting to stay close to the wall on the way out in search of clear water. We were going to be swimming directly into the sun, and I knew that seeing the buoys on the way out was going to be nearly impossible even with goggles that are more tinted than a cholo’s car. It was a non wetsuit swim, which made me both happy and sad: Happy because I could wear my ROKA swimskin, sad because I couldn’t wear my maverick. I wonder what would happen if I wore my swimskin under my wetsuit at pumpkinman… Would it be twice as fast?
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| since we're talking about cars... |
Anyways, with Paul, Pedro, and a teammate Douglas, all relatively strong swimmers, all within arms reach, I felt confident that I was in the rgiht place at the start. We took it out, and within a few hundred yards I had taken the lead of a pack that was chasing two. One was Pedro, and the other was from Air Force. I could see Paul and Douglas still with me up until the turnaround buoy, and then I took a backstroke and noticed I had a small but promising gap. I kept pushing, and felt that it was going to get a bit wavy on the way back in. I flailed my arms as fast as I could, and made it back to land (whew) in 3rd, about 45 seconds down from the leaders and 30ish up on the rest of the group. I smiled entering T1, and there was tons of crowd support lining the swim out.
Bike
Having space to myself when starting the bike portion was an ideal situation for me. I don’t like feeling the pressure of others while flying mounting or putting my shoes on. The quarter mile of the bike is usually “me time” where I get settled and let my legs build into the effort. I tried to stay relaxed, and reeled in the Air Force athlete within a few minutes. From there it was head down, trying to not kill myself on any of the 16 (yes, 16) turns each lap. It’s no secret that I’m not a very strong technical rider, and I knew that Paul/probably everyone on the course that doesn’t turn like a grandma would be making time up to me on every turn (especially the U turns… I am working on those). I could see Pedro off in the distance about 45 seconds up still, and it took everything i had to not try to sprint up to him. He would end up out biking me by well over a minute, so it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t chase → blow up trying.
Paul went by me about 25 minutes in, and I already knew he would try to get rid of me immediately. In some ways, I wish I had tried harder to stay with him, but at the same time I knew I had a good run up my sleeve, and he was not biking at a pace that would be sustainable for me. I checked my average speed to make sure I wasn’t getting dunked on too hard, and was by no means sandbagging it, which was slightly reassuring. Towards the end of the bike leg I was nearly involved in a crash when somehow a vehicle ended up in the “closed” bike course and blocked the entire lane. After an agonizing 3-5 seconds (felt like 30-50 minutes), the car moved, and I was on my way. I tried to keep myself in check and focus on the run ahead, but in the back of my mind I was very frustrated with that. If someone had been staring at their bike computer they could have easily ran head on into this person. The Tempe course is already sketchy enough, with 3 U turns each lap, the last thing we need is an SUV stopped in the middle of the road mixed in. I came into transition with two full bottles of SKRATCH in my system and about 80 seconds down on Paul. Also, huge shoutout to Matt Skelton for letting me borrow his race wheels. They were #dirtyfast.
Run:
I threw on my sweet, blacked out OnClouds, grabbed my gel flask, (which was actually just filled with water so I didn’t have to get cups at aid stations) watch, and hat on my way out of T2. After hearing a split of about 1:20 down, I got to work. The first steps felt meh, and I just did my best to keep my feet moving quickly and stay under control as opposed to sprinting too hard. This course got the best of me last year, and I really did not want to end up needing medical attention again. I began to build the pace a few minutes in, and tried to focus on keeping my head down and a high turnover. By 2 miles in I took a split for myself and I had already made up 50 seconds to Paul. My legs wanted to go really fast, but I told myself to save it for the back half in case I see Josh coming or still have to chase down Paul. knew at this point I would most likely catch him unless he threw down some crazy negative split. We linked up just after the 5k point, and I was still feeling pretty good. I let my legs do what they wanted to do on the back half. It hurt, a lot, but at the same time I still felt in control, and was nowhere near the bonk point. I still had my lead on Josh, and was debating cruising the last mile in, but instead decided that the mental factor of finishing strong mattered more to me, especially after practically walking over the bridge last year.
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| Beginning lap 2 |
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| Heading in the finish |
Overall, I had a great time being up early and exercising with ~1000 of my best friends on a beautiful Sunday morning in Tempe. The number of ASU kits out on the course was really cool, and everyone seemed to enjoy it ;) Watching the team grow steadily over the past two years has been incredible, and we actually have people showing up to practice every day and they are excited to be there. There were tons of first times out on the course, and lots of our new returning members raced their first olympic, qualifying them for collegiate nationals!
Thanks to Danny and Malcolm for taking on coaching a bunch of college kids. Having you guys as mentors really helps a lot, we value your experience and appreciate you spectating our exercise parties on a daily basis.
Everyone who bought an asu triathlon shirt! We <3 U
Steve from SteveBay - tons of good ideas, looking forward to growing our community with you!
My family - for non-financially supporting my ridiculous habits :)
Matt Skelton - for the #dirtyfast race wheels, and Bryan for your love of driving
Everyone I tutor - for dealing with me when I’m super tired. Just discovered that there’s a coffee machine in the lounge, so I’ll be wired from now on.
The ASU tri team (And especially our prez Julia bc she makes it all happen) - for making triathlon fun and being the “most chill” team out there.
Next up is Pumpkinman in Las Vegas! I know that the boys from Colorado will bring their “A” game, and I’m looking forward to throwing down with some of those mountain goats. I’m also looking forward to enjoying Vegas as a 21 year old and halloweekend at ASU as a 21 year old as well!
